ABBOT Hall Art Gallery's new exhibition shines a light on one of the region's most radical arts organisations.

Opening tomorrow (Friday, October 10) at the Kendal gallery, The Nuisance of Landscape: Grizedale - The Sequel, tells the story – sometimes serious, sometimes irreverent – of how Grizedale Arts has expanded its reach from working with local Cumbrian communities to a global model for contemporary art practice.

Central to Grizedale Arts philosophy is an emphasis on the use value of art. From its headquarters at Lawson Park, above Coniston Water, GA runs a programme of residencies and events that promote the creation of art as an instrument for social change and improvement both locally and within the wider community.

The exhibition is billed as an irresistible journey through the twists and turns of Grizedale Arts’ last 15 years, taking in artists Andy Goldsworthy, Marcus Coates, Olaf Breuning, Turner Prize winners Jeremy Deller and Laure Prouvost, and many more along its creative way.

Indeed expansive, the show presents a challenging view of the rural landscape and the conventional ‘romantic’ perceptions of it, featuring reconstructions, artist films, complex installations, original artworks, performance and a wealth of other material that will provoke, confuse, enlighten and entertain.

In fact, artistically, Abbot Hall's probably never seen the likes of this before.

In addition to the main exhibition, across the Abbot Hall courtyard at the Museum of Lakeland Life and Industry, Laure Prouvost’s recent Turner Prizewinning film installation, Wantee, celebrates her fictional grandfather’s association with artist Kurt Schwitters. And elsewhere at another Lakeland Arts venue at Blackwell, Grizedale Arts has created After Ford 151 – Blackwell’s Dark Place, a collision of objects and ideas that presents a politicised history of design, and explores the notion of Arts and Crafts as a resistance movement.

Meanwhile, there's another Grizedale/Lakeland Arts collaboration coming up - Anchorhold, running at Abbot Hall Art Gallery, from November 8-23.

Part sculpture, part architecture, Anchorhold is an ingenious wooden structure, designed by the architectural practice Sutherland Hussey, and built from 25 sheets of ply, precisely machine-cut in such a way so that all pieces interlock with minimal wastage.

Apparently, an 'anchorhold' was a 10th Century hermitage in which anchorites would be walled into in order to think on issues that impacted on society.

The project will be led by celebrated artist Marcus Coates.

Abbot Hall Art Gallery and MOLLI are open Monday-Saturday, 10.30am-5pm (4pm November- February).